


Waking Up

by r_lee



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 09:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix returns to Galactica. Season Four spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up

All he knows—he knew it the whole time, begged, prayed, pleaded with anyone who would listen, anyone who cared—is that he doesn’t want to wake up and find it gone. That would be unthinkable, to not be able to say goodbye to a part of himself that had done so frakking well for so frakking long and gods, gods, the pain, they can’t give him any more morpha and still. Still.

Frak, they’ll give anyone a gun these days. Let any stupid motherfrakker pilot a Viper. The only thing that takes his mind off his leg is the pinpoint bright white light of rage directed squarely at Anders. Wherever the guy is, whatever the guy does, he hopes he feels it. Now and always, a constant shame, a constant guilt. Even Anders has to know he never did anything wrong, never did anything to deserve being shot. He was only following orders.

Yes, Felix, the morpha-induced voice licks into his ear, you were only following orders. Mutiny is such a special word, isn’t it? You can just tell everyone spooling up the FTL drives wasn’t your idea. You were doing it on orders. So what if it was a little vague and questionable? So what if people were being relieved of duty under Article 10 of the Colonial Military Code faster than anyone could shake a stick? It was crazy, Felix, crazy in there. Everyone so hot and bothered, and all they wanted to do was go home. No one can blame them. No one can blame you. You were just following orders. Whose orders, and whether or not they had the right to give them... well, that’s something for a tribunal to settle.

You like tribunals, don’t you. Anders was part of that one too. Maybe he just has it in for you.

No, no, he argues through his drug-induced haze, Anders quit over that, didn’t he? Who knows, who cares, and why, he wonders, is he trying to find some reason or some excuse for the guy who shot him?

Maybe because you’re just like that, the morpha voice replies, and it’s neither masculine nor feminine but it’s sexy as hell and he lets the sound of the voice wrap around him and cover him in sluggish heavy gooey goodness like morpha always does. It doesn’t take away the pain, it only makes it matter less. It takes the mind on a journey away from so much immediate reality. _Don’t let them take my leg_ transforms to _don’t let them take it while I’m asleep, I don’t want to wake up without it_ and somewhere along the line, Helo agrees to that as if it’s his boon to grant. But someone has to make him the promise. He doesn’t trust the morpha any more than he trusts Starbuck or any more than he trusts the blurred feeling of sudden stomach-dropping displacement that tells him the Demetrius has jumped, finally and blessedly, and the pain just about makes him pass out.

But no, no, he doesn’t want to sleep through this. He wants to give his leg a proper burial. A proper send-off. He wants to remember exactly what it feels like to lose it once and for all: he needs to hold onto the moment because even through his morpha haze, he knows that moments like this are transformative beyond the obvious. He will use this knowledge, this memory and let it shape him the way it has to. That’s what he’s always done; it’s what he will always do.

He watches the surgery from above, detached from his body, detached from his very skin. So that’s what an amputation looks like, he thinks in a way that’s almost bored with the whole thing as the scene unfolds down below. Messy business, so messy. He watches himself scream, watches his fingers dig into the bed beneath him in agony. Remember this moment, Felix, he tells himself. Remember it for later.

Morpha, morpha, and more morpha: he wouldn’t mind being a junkie the rest of his days if it lets him float like this. He wonders, just before he finally falls asleep, after he’s watched Doc tape up the stump of his leg, after he’s watched everyone leave him alone, if Anders will have a similar blessed moment of floating once he’s airlocked for his crime.

He hopes not.


End file.
